And now:[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: The following was distributed in response to a question on how stopping a whale kill is an "Indian Issue" by Storm Reyes, Pullyallup. Thank you, Susan for giving me permission to speak on this and also for your kind words. Thanks also for the patience of those willing to read these words. As I said, I am not a scholar or an expert on anything, so the only way I can speak is from the heart, and asking that for a moment you look through my eyes and my experiences. In order to do that, you need to know who, or maybe what, I am. I am Hokema. There is no comparable English word, but perhaps someone other than myself might define it better. Briefly it means I am a teacher, a counselor, a spiritual person. I carry the sacred pipe and am dedicated to working for the people..which means all the people, all the relations. I have been trained and taught since childhood for this, yet it is by my choice that I do this. So, those are the eyes you will see through and that is the heart that will try and speak. And I will "speak" this as if we were sitting together around a table sharing coffee and bread. Besides this message, I will post one that I wrote immediately following the hunt, which Susan has already seen. First let me say that whaling itself is not an Indian issue..it is a people issue. I agree with those that say commercial whaling must stop. I speak only about the Makah hunt, and that is an Indian issue. To understand this, you must understand the problem, and it goes beyond legalitities or politics. Native peoples are in a process of recovery. Most of the injuries are easily recognizable..loss of home, loss of independence, loss of life. But some of the great injuries are those that can't be seen...loss of identity, loss of unity, loss of balance, loss of direction. Where once a people had clear-cut goals, direction, instruction and purpose, now we are faced with simple survival...survival of the physical beings, survival of a species, survival of a people as a separate and distinct culture. The elders who taught and lead us died during the invasion...a people's teachers gone with their accumulated knowledge and wisdom. Children died in groves during the invasion...a people's future cut off and limited. Removal from home..a ripping away of all that was held dear and all that was familiar. And, each nation is spiritually tied to home..our creation began there, our instruction began there, our ancestors and spirituality resides there. So the invasion happens, we are defeated people...and the next step that comes is being "wards" of the invaders. We first were placed under the War Department. In some cases, an extermination policy was undertaken, and then more "compassionate" heads came who decided to assimiliate us. Teach us to be not Indian anymore..without ever understanding what "Indian" was. So we were forbidden to be Indian..our children ripped away and sent to schools..our spiritual ways (religions) forbidden..our social activities outlawed. (And many spiritual ways and social activities are still against the law to this day.) And it was a miserable failure from their perspective and from ours. We are Indian..it can't be unlearned. Now many of us are simply misfits..neither one thing or another. Remember, we are only talking a few generations of people. For the PNW, it is only 3 generations. My great-grandfather was one of the signators of the Medicine Creek Treaty. So, today, we are left feeling still like a defeated people, trying to find our way in a society that does not welcome us and still refers to us as "the Indian problem," and yet, our ways, the tried and true ways, have been lost in some cases or at least is a jig-saw puzzle that we are still trying to put together. The outcome has been disaster..our teenagers have the highest rate of suicide in the world, our alcoholism rate is terrifying, diseases not previously known to us are felling us in droves. What is the answer..how to stop this downward spiral, how to regroup, how to find purpose, direction, unity. How to stop our children from killing themselves out of hopelessness and helplessness. How to restore pride and self-worth in us all? It won't take money to do this. It won't take anyone else solving our problems. It will take a dedicated effort and unity on our part to pull together the shattered remains and rebuild. Many nations are trying many different things. Some are facing forward and looking to education, technology, economic stability. Some have resources to take that approach. Some are facing backward, trying to pull together that which sustained them culturally, spiritually. There is no one single answer for a problem this complex, and it will take generations to do. And we are doing it on our own..our neighbors continue to wish the Indian problem would just go away. The consequences of stopping the Makah hunt: A people striving for unity and self-determination fail. And that failure spreads to all the other nations who watch so closely to see if it can be done..can the Makah recover that which was lost, that which unified them, that which clearly identified them and sustained them as Makah. If a people cannot suceed in following their own path, then it just reinforces the hopelessness and helplessness. But the consequences of a successful hunt could be just as dire: If they do succeed, what next? Will they then act in a wise way? Will they forget their original purpose for the hunt. Will it indeed pull them together and will they remember that it is not physical hunt, but the unity of purpose of spirit that led to it that was important. It is not the destination that it is important..it is the journey along the way. Storm Reprinted under the Fair Use http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html doctrine of international copyright law. &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& Tsonkwadiyonrat (We are ONE Spirit) Unenh onhwa' Awayaton http://www.tdi.net/ishgooda/ &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
